Nagini's venom as "mother's milk" (Was: Acromantula Venom)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 155437

Allie wrote:
> 
> Second that!  We're also told that spiders flee before the 
> basilisk...  Nagini isn't a basilisk but she is a big giant snake...  
> Maybe there is some interaction between her milk or venom and the 
> acromantula venom.

> Allie (who is a vet and wonders if JKR knows that non-magic snakes 
> don't make milk)

Carol responds:
I'm not sure whether you're thinking of my posts, in which I was
referring to Nagini (whose venom is also an ingredient in the potion
that restores Vapor!mort to a rudimentary body in the first place) as
a surrogate mother to Baby!mort. If so, I was referring to "milk" in a
figurative sense. Wormtail "milks" Nagini (Voldemort's word) to remove
her venom so that he (Wormtail) can feed it to Baby!mort to sustain
his/its existence as a mother's milk sustains her baby. Very creepy,
horrible parody of motherhood, IMO. 

I'm sure JKR knows that reptiles don't have mammary glands and that
she's using "milk" in the figurative sense of inducing a snake to
release its venom, but I'm also fairly sure that she used the metaphor
intentionally for its symbolic implications, just as I think she
deliberately made Voldemort's rudimentary body resemble a horrible
fetus to suggest potential evil, which will become full-fledged evil
when Voldemort is "reborn." Baby!mort is utterly helpless (except for
being able to manipulate Wormtail and to wield a wand) and wholly
dependent on Wormtail to meet his needs. He can't Apparate or walk or
even feed himself. He's evil combined with weakness and dependency, an
"infant" whose "parents" are Nagini and Wormtail. 

But when he's (re)born, it will be as an adult, no longer dependent on
anyone, in full possession of his formidable powers. Wormtail, the
reluctant surrogate father, is reduced to servitude (or perhaps to
another form of servitude, since he was already Voldemort's factotum
and is now reduced to spying on or waiting on Snape), and "dear
Nagini," who may or may not have a bit of his soul in her, is also
subject to his control (though at least for her he retains something
like affection). Evil combined with power feels no gratitude, no debt
to any human being, no emotion except fear and anger, no remorse.
Perhaps we're meant to see that the resurrectd Voldemort, "born" from
a fetal monstrosity sustained by venom in place of mother's milk, is
no longer human despite his memories of life as the murderous boy Tom
Riddle.

As for Nagini, who must be defeated in Book 7 whether or not she's a
Horcrux (and it will simplify matters greatly if DD is right on this
point), I think we'll see a reprise of the Sword of Gryffindor, which
Harry will wield somewhat more skilfully than he did in CoS, without
the need for Phoenix tears this time around.

I don't think Acromantula venom will have anything to do with her
death. Acromantulas may well play a part in the next book, but I can't
guess what it will be since they won't even cooperate with Hagrid, and
I don't think Voldemort has anything to offer them. (They're perfectly
content in the Forbidden Forest, which is now a more dangerous place
than it's ever been, unless the Centaurs have come back to "our side"
with the death of Dumbledore.) I suspect that having Slughorn "milk"
the dead Aragog (ugh! no surrogate mother imagery here, I hope) is
nothing more than a plot device for getting Slughorn to Aragog's
funeral so that Harry can get the Horcrux memory.

Carol, who almost typed "Aragorn" for "Aragog"